What is the Growth Mindset?
If this is your first time here, welcome! This is a 12-week series to help parents and teachers discover hidden gems across the internet that will help them teach Growth Mindset to the children in their lives.
What is it? Fixed versus Growth Mindset
A fixed mindset means a child believes his or her intelligence is set and that there’s no changing it. With a growth mindset, a child believes persistence and hard work lead to success.
How can you help?
**Allow children to make mistakes
**Praise them on the process (work) instead of the end result (grade)
** Teach them that mistakes and failures will help them learn and grow
**Help your child change their inner dialogue:
Instead of “I can’t do this,” teach them to say, “ I can’t do this yet.”
- Instead of “I’m not smart,” try “ I will learn to do this!”
- Instead of “That didn’t work!” tell them to say “There’s always Plan B!”
- Instead of “I give up!” have them practice saying, “I’ll try it a different way!”
- Instead of “This is too hard!” have them say “This may take some time.”
**Be mindful of areas that can promote a Fixed Mindset (undesirable mindset)
**Pay attention to: what children are
- Watching (television, youtube, etc.)
- What children listen to (music)
- What they are reading (books)
Use www.commonsensemedia.org for reviews and recommendations for children’s media and technology
Extra Yarn by Mac Barnett
Extra Yarn, a Caldecott Honor Book, Boston Globe-Horn Book Award winner, and a New York Times bestseller, is the story of how a young girl and her box of magical yarn transform a community. With spare, gently humorous illustrations and a palette that moves from black-and-white to a range of color, this modern fairy tale has the feel of a new classic.
How this book teaches Growth Mindset:
There is a little girl, named Annabelle, and she has this magic yarn that just never goes away. Annabelle makes things, like sweaters, hats and gloves out of her yarn. People, in the story, get jealous, because they want Annabelle to make something for them. Annabelle decides to make something for everyone. She spends her days and nights, she never stops, and she has large goals. That is how this book teaches growth mindset – she has big goals that she has set out to accomplish. She keeps on going for those goals, even when tricky things happen. For example, Mr. Crabtree does not want Annabelle to make him something, but she decides to make him something unique anyway. So when there was a roadblock, Annabelle figures it out and continues on because she has a goal to make everyone something out of her yarn.
A video to teach Growth Mindset:
Lesson on teaching Growth Mindset:
A Growth Mindset Snack – incorporating FOOD into lessons because students always seem to understand it more with food
